May Flowers--Lilies

Lilies!

We are getting quite a collection of Lilies now.  Our son's girlfriend has been giving us Lilies every Easter for several years now.  We have a cluster of Lilies in the front Daylily bed and in the Iris bed in the backyard. This year they were quite showy!  I love how the bloom last for at least a week or more.

Garden Angel

In other news...for Mother's day I went shopping for some yard art.  Above  is my sweet garden angel.  He looks like he is saying, "Grow, plants! Grow!"  Hopefully he will have some nice influence on my Circle Garden plants!

Garden Update--April 2011

Dianthus among herbs--2011

There is a reason my posts have been few and far between:  Internet---Internet---Internet.


The blessings of living in the country is you get to have a yard, and a garden, and your dog gets to run the neighborhood. 

The curse is the lack of high-speed Internet.  When the leaves grow--no Internet.  When the wind blows--no Internet.  When the rain falls--no Internet.


Nevertheless, there is still beauty all around.  And whether or not I can report it...I still get to enjoy it!!


Romaine Lettuce & Cabbage...were delicious!



Another shot of the herb garden.  This time in the foreground are:  Romaine Lettuce (delicious), Cabbage (so much better than supermarket cabbage), Parsley, Oregano, Chive, Arugula, Chocolate Mint.  In the background:  Thyme, Dill, Tarragon.



Pat plants a cover crop.

Pat plants a cover crop of black-eyed peas...the official legume of Texas.

Anyway, he wins most of the argument for planting a cover crop which is to feed our garden so we'll have many years of excellent crops.  Then the soil test came back and our soil is extremely fertile.   Who knew?  We are low in phosophorous and potassium?  We were  betting on nitrogen, but we don't have the complete results yet.

Yard wagon and spineless

Our spineless cactus is taking off as well.  After two harsh winters in a row, the solid, aged base is feeding the greenry and sprouting new pads.  I've been hoping for a few blooms, too.  But that may be asking for too much this year.  I'm glad it is rebounding.

What's this I see.  Another spineless cactus in the making?

Point of View--A Unique Look



Pictures of birdbath through Crepe Myrtles--January 2011

I do not know if I have said this recently, but I am loving my new camera!  Above you see 3 shots of our birdbath with different points of view.  If there is one thing I am quickly discovering about taking pictures of the same spaces in our yard is that if you move just so, or scoot to the right, or step in ever so closer, you gain a different point of view.  Some views are obscure, such as looking at our birdbath through our Crepe Myrtles.  Yet, if I do say so myself, the beauty of the Crepe Myrtles is appreciated more when used as a frame for our beloved birdbath. 

The birdbath in the picture is almost 30 years old.  It has been stained with pesticide and fertilizer.  Its base has cracked due to hard freezes and the rebar that holds it steady is exposed.  Yet it remains as one of our most beloved focal points of the garden.  It is loved and appreciated by the birds every so often, but is loved by the dogs in the heat of summer for a cool sip of water even more.  It adorns the beautiful blooms of our prized Irises when they are in bloom, and becomes the centerpiece when they recede.  

Once again, I will urge you to step out into your garden, even now, and look for those wonderful points of view that are your favorites and snap a picture.  Post a comment on this post with a link so others can enjoy the beauty of your landscape, too!



Retiring the Elph?

Water Boy, above. Antique Rose, left

The photos for all of my posts have been taken with my dear old friend, the Cannon Power Shot Digital Elph SD 450. The zoom is to 3x, has 5.0 mega pixels, and 5.8-17.4 mm--whatever that means. When I revived the blog, Pat knew what he wanted to get me for Christmas. I have it already, but it is tucked away in my closet. I'm too afraid to open the box. But I'll tell you what it is: it is a real camera. For some of you who are already amateur to pros at taking pictures, you might giggle at my next step taking pictures with a Nikon D3100. But for me it feels like I'm 18 months old driving a car! The new camera has a real lens that comes off for crying out loud! And you have to know what you are doing. Scary. But luckily for me, it has an auto feature which I will be using a lot until I get some lessons! So until December 25th my photos will be taken with my dear old friend. On Christmas Day I intend to initiate my new friend. The Elph will not die or go away. I have a feeling he'll come out every once-in-a-while until I get used to my new friend!

Boney's Almanac--Fall 2010



Water Valve Yard Art

 I hope this piece of yard art isn't an omen to how our winter will go.  So far our Fall for 2010 has been very dry.  Pat said he read in the paper that this October to December stretch is the driest on record since the 50's.  My water bill confirms this trend as it has not had the usual drop in usage.

In fact, our growing season is just now starting to slow down.  The Cannas have frozen, the Knock Out Roses are dropping a few leaves, and most of our trees have lost all their leaves.  The weather planner at KWTX has mostly sunny skies and mild temperatures for the coming Christmas week so the trend continues. 

A quick peek at the Farmer's Almanac online suggests we will see pockets of stormy weather throughout the winter season in Texas with chances of wintry mix.  However, our local KWTX weather blog has a slightly different outlook:  warmer and drier than usual due to the La Nina weather pattern.  Boo.  This means I can expect higher than usual water bills!

Yard Art



Pat's Moon

We not only like to add new plants to our gardens, we also like to find art to decorate our landscape.  The best pieces we have are the ones that were given to us or recycled out of other things that are no longer of any use.  One example of a recycling project is when Pat cut up and reused his old bar-b-que pit, Ol' Smokey.  Pat's Moon, pictured above, was cut out of the end of Ol' Smokey.  When we retired Ol' Smokey, we could not bear to throw it away.  It held so many memories of cookouts with the boys when they were little.  Pat used stoke the fire in the pit with a "fire stick," and the boys had to have their own "fire sticks," too.  They would get the ends heated just enough that they would glow.  Then the boys would around the yard with a smoke trail following close behind them!

Matt's Duck Sculpture

When our youngest was in high school, he added to our yard art collection with the masterpiece above. I believe he created the piece out of carefully-selected scrap, then welded it together to form a perfect montage.  He carefully spray-painted just the right parts of it white. The duck heads were added from Pat's worn out decoys. 



Finally, some of our art is purchased, like Mr. Sun.  The angel in the background was a Christmas gift one year.  Sometime in the spring Pat will cut up Dad Boney's bar-b-que pit and place it strategically around the yard.  Decorating the yard with memories adds another dimension to gardening.  More updates will follow!